If you own a medical practice, the design of your website might be one of the last things on your mind. However, your medical practice website design is critical to your practice’s success.
Here’s the good news: designing an engaging and compelling medical practice website doesn’t have to be complicated. This article will explain why web design is so important and some of the top strategies for creating a healthcare website that will help you engage visitors and draw in new patients.
Let’s get started.
The Importance of Medical Practice Web Design
You might be thinking: How much does the design of my medical practice website really matter?
Here’s the truth: There are lots of healthcare brands vying for the same patients’ attention. So a poorly designed website just might be the difference between a patient choosing one of your competitors over you.
According to a Black Book survey of nearly 650 healthcare consumers, “Eighty-eight percent of patients under age 40 said they will choose their next provider based on the provider’s online presence.” [I]
In today’s digital age, users expect seamless online interactions; if a website seems outdated, confusing, or difficult to use, they won’t hesitate to move on to something else.
This sentiment was echoed in a 1,000-person Redpoint Global survey: “consumers overwhelmingly prefer to interact with their healthcare providers digitally…Eighty percent of people surveyed said they prefer to use digital communications with their healthcare providers—such as online messaging or virtual appointments—at least some of the time.” [ii]
Spend a few minutes evaluating your medical practice’s current website. Is it visually engaging? Is the format intuitive? Does it answer your users’ questions/ fulfill their needs? Are there clear calls to action? If you answered “no” to any of these questions, there’s no need to worry. Below we are going to explain 5 things you can do to design a better website for your medical practice today.
1. Prioritize Intuitive Navigation
The first thing you should consider when designing any kind of website is navigation—i.e., how your visitors navigate your site when interacting with it.
Whether a new visitor or a repeated one lands on your website, they do so for a reason. If what they are looking for or need isn’t intuitive, they will quickly move on to an alternative with a more user-friendly design.
When designing your medical practice website, start by considering your audience’s needs. What is most important to them? What are they seeking by going to your website? How can you make it easy to meet their needs logically and intuitively?
Some ways you can enhance the user-friendliness of your website are by minimizing large blocks of unnecessary text, including strategically placed calls to action, and having clear headers that make the entire site easy to navigate. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes and continue refining the design until it’s as intuitive as possible.
2. Ensure Your Website is Responsive (Mobile-Friendly)
Once you’ve developed an intuitive design and layout for your medical practice website, it’s time to ensure that it is also responsive. Responsiveness is just a tech term for how easily your website displays itself on different devices (like mobile phones) as opposed to desktops.
Making sure your web design is compatible with mobile devices is becoming increasingly important as consumers use their phones for everyday searching. Having a website that renders poorly on mobile devices can be a huge red flag to your audience.
According to research conducted by HubSpot, “93% of people have left a website because it didn’t display properly on their device.” [iii]
Spending time making sure that your website design is mobile-friendly is a must if you want to engage mobile users in your audience.
3. Leverage Color Psychology for your medical practice website
Did you know that certain colors can elicit certain feelings and emotions? This phenomenon is known as color psychology, and it’s incredibly relevant to website design.
While it might not seem like it initially, the colors you choose for your website significantly affect how your audience views and perceives your brand. You want to make sure you use colors in your web design that align with how you want your users to feel when they interact with your branding.
This article explains how you can leverage color psychology to choose the best colors for your healthcare brand. [iv] You can also check out this infographic to see how other healthcare brands use color in strategic ways. [v]
4. Emphasize HIPAA Compliance and Privacy for Patient Resources
As the healthcare industry continues to adopt new digital tools, it will become increasingly important for medical practices to safeguard their patients’ privacy online and emphasize their commitment to confidentiality in their website design.
According to that same Black Book survey, “Ninety-three percent of patients expect to use digital tools that facilitate patient-provider interactions. Eighty-five percent said the same about virtual care access, 97 percent about online scheduling, 92 percent about online payment tools, and 94 percent about online price transparency tools.” [I]
More than ever before, patients expect to interact with their healthcare providers online. With that comes the need to set up safeguards for HIPAA compliance and security for different patient resources. When designing your medical practice website, you should 1) make sure that all the tools you are using are HIPAA-compliant and 2) make sure to communicate throughout your website how and why you are committed to patient privacy.
If it’s not clear on your website how seriously you take these things, you risk losing out on patients who fear you won’t prioritize their privacy online.
5. Partner with an Expert
The final thing you can do to design a better website for your medical practice is to partner with an expert. While it is possible to design, develop, and implement a medical practice website on your own, it can be much easier to work with a team that specializes in healthcare web design.
At ArchKATect, we are experts in healthcare marketing. You tell us about your vision for your website, and we can help bring it to life. Whether you need to build an entirely new website from scratch or just want to improve upon an existing one, we are ready to partner with you. Let us help you create a website that is HIPAA-compliant, mobile-friendly, easy to navigate, and more!
Contact us today so that we can get started designing a better website for your healthcare brand.
References
- PatientEngagementHIT (2018). What Do Patients, Consumers Want in Digital Health Tools?
- Gordon, D. (n.d.). New Survey Shows Consumers Expect Better Healthcare Experiences—But Are Often Disappointed. [online] Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/debgordon/2021/12/07/new-survey-shows-consumers-expect–better-healthcare-experiences-but-are-often-disappointed/?sh=32b6fef273f6 [Accessed 31 Jan. 2023].
- Devaney, E. (2014). 8 Guidelines for Exceptional Web Design, Usability, and User Experience. [online] Hubspot.com. Available at: https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/30557/6-guidelines-for-exceptional-website-design-and-usability.aspx.
- Archkatect. (2022). Color Psychology in Healthcare Branding: How to select the best colors. [online] Available at: https://archkatect.com/color-psychology-in-healthcare-branding-how-to-select-the-best-colors/.
